A Page in the Life
by The Ruby Red Raven
Summary: Or where Methos REALLY got the diary.


_A Life in a Page…. _

_Or Where Methos __**Really**__ Got the Diary From_

The Great Hall was bustling with excited voices, the clatter and scrape of gold cutlery on gold plates. Even though the Hall was still filled with bright laughter and the tales of the day, it was subdued in the heavy cloak that Dolores Umbridge radiated from the throne like centre chair that rightfully belonged to Albus Dumbledore. On the far right table, three friends sat in miserable silence.

Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley ate their chosen meals quietly. The immediate students around them were also quiet. As if their guilt and depression was a highly contagious disease. The announcement that Dumbledore was now a fugitive and Senior Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge was taking over from him had been small and brief.

Most likely because the Minister of Magic didn't want people to question why Dumbledore was suddenly a criminal on the run and what in Merlin's name was Dolores appointed ahead of Minerva McGonagall- the Deputy Headmistress and the rightful successor after Dumbledore, Hermione had told them primly after Dean Thomas had commented on it.

When the main doors burst open, revealing a tall thin figure dressed in sopping wet clothes, the noise and movement in the Hall cut off as if someone had hit Pause on a film. "You can't come here! You don' belong here!" Filch, the cankerous caretaker of Hogwarts hobbled up behind the newcomer, banishing a mop like a lance.

"Bloody weather! I'd forgotten how bloody cold it got up here this time of year." Pushing back his hood, the figure was revealed to be a skinny, young man with short choppy dark hair that looked like he trimmed it himself. He wore a knee-length black Muggle-style coat, dark jeans and hiking boots.

"Adam!" Minerva McGonagall's voice sounded loud in the hushed room. "I didn't know you were back in the United Kingdom." She got up from place at Dolores' right hand side and hurried to the man. He smiled charmingly at her, took her hand and pressed a chaste kiss to the back of it.

To everyone's surprise McGonagall blushed and giggled. "Always the gentleman, Adam."

"Only a gentleman to those who are true ladies." He commented with a small laugh and made half the female student population melt. "I came to return this to you." He produce a small old book with a beaten and cracked leather cover and yellow pages.

"Oh, Adam…you didn't have to come in person. Thank you." McGonagall took the book with revered hands.

"I wanted to see you again." Adam stroked a thumb over her cheek. "You are a beautiful as you were when I first met you."

"You are incorrigible." McGonagall told him with some of the sternness that her students were more accustomed to.

"Incorrigible? Me? I'm honest, that's what I am." Adam laughed, a deep warm sound. Harry swore he heard Hermione sigh in the same way she'd sighed over Lockhart. Adam opened his coat but didn't remove it, underneath he wore a worn woolly sweater.

"Have you eaten? We have plenty." McGonagall invited him, while Filch huffed and puffed behind them. As she led the man to the high table, heads swivelled to see what their new headmistress would handle this dynamic.

The short squat witch didn't disappoint. She rose from her seat although there wasn't much height difference between them, she cleared her throat in that annoying way of hers and all the students lent forward to get a better look. "Minerva, I believe you have to put in a request to have non-staff or students visit the school."

Before McGonagall could open her mouth, and from the tight lines at her mouth and eyes, she had plenty to say, Adam cut in, "Oh I'll take full responsibility, I didn't tell her I was coming. It was a surprise."

Umbridge choked while Adam smiled but it wasn't kind or warm like the ones he gave McGonagall. This one was sharp and cold as a steel sword and looked just as dangerous. Umbridge seemed to sense it as well as she stuttered a little before she could pull herself together, "Of course. I trust Minerva to find you a suitable room." She sat down again quickly.

"Of course." Adam matched Umbridge's sickening sweet tone perfectly.

That night, in Minerva's private study, Methos explained, finally why he needed the diary. She had accepted his explanation with a sharp nod. Then she took the diary and reverently traced the name that was written in a neat italic script. _Delmar Gawain McGonagall_. Her ancestor. Methos smiled sadly when he saw the name. "Everyone called him Gawain. He hated the name Delmar."

Minerva nodded. "I can't remember how many times I've read this. My father would read it aloud to me when I was a child. He told me it was a fairytale. I never once thought it could be real." Then she turned to the very back of the book. "This is my favourite part."

She read aloud, "_'This shall be my last entry. I know that he will not return from the challenge- whether he wins or loses- he will not come back. And my heart aches as deeply and painfully as it would if it was my own child that walks towards death so easily. I cannot help but sit by my study window, watching with eyes that are not as keen as they once were, for that flash of blue fire. For the white and blue storm to rise up and fill the night sky._

'_As I wait- as impatient as a child for summertime, I remember. The many years I had been his Watcher, and just as many years I had been his friend. I remember as if it had happened only earlier this day. How I had thought I was invisible to his eyes. Unknown. I remember how he once stood next to me, in the street watching our King Henry ride past with his third Queen, the lovely Ioanna__**(1). **_

'_Even as I clapped and bowed, I felt the prick of a dagger to my gut. At first I thought of thieves and assassins, then his soft voice- more cultured that I could believe, he told me in the tone one would use to query about the weather, 'you really should be more careful. I normally don't take too kindly to your kind.' _

'_Before I could cry for help or ask what he meant he was gone. Melted into the crowd as if he had no more substance than a ghost. That was the first time I talked with him. The next was when he had come up to me again in bustling market place. He suggested that I take the grapes imported from Italy. Then asked what I thought of our new queen. _

'_I can recall with clarity that belies my age how such conversations continued for months. When I was first assigned him, I thought him to be a Immortal- yes but no greater than one who had lived only a hundred years. I never believed that Doctor William Mallard could be the great Methos of legend. The oldest Immortal. By the time he revealed his true identity- by complete accident- I was already he closest confidant. _

'_I look out the window, I have lost count of the times my eyes have strayed through the glass. Still no sign of the Quickening. I turn back to my journal. It pains me to think that no one at the Council will read it. That it will be passed down through my children and children's children, thought only to be a fairytale. I think of the things I have learnt. _

'_The histories that could be rewritten because of this one man. Who knew that he was one of the Biblical Horsemen- I would not have connected this polite, shy man with a savage and monster. He told me clearly, the pain and regret he felt as palpable as the salted pork and bread we shared. He told me of the ancient cities he had visited and made me long to see the ruins of Rome and Athens. _

'_I shall never see those wonders that he had described to me. It pains me that I shall never see him again, our last meeting just this morning had been a terrible row between us. I had begged him not to meet Gaius- an Immortal only two thousand years compared to Methos' five. But still I could only see my friend with no head- his face blank with death. _

'_But he had gone. Before he did I offered him this book filled with scribbled thoughts. He handed it back to me, 'there is still more to be written.' He told me. So I write for the last time here. For forty years we have know one another, he has never said goodbye. Whether he was leaving my house for the night or going on a weekend to the coast. he never said goodbye. This night, while he sheathed his sword, he said goodbye and I knew I would never see him again even if I was to live another sixty years. _

'_Again my eyes drift to the window. And then I see it. That flash of unearthly blue fills the sky for a blink. A whisper of thunder and then lightning, as if the Ancient God, Zeus himself was raging against a small corner of our country. I watch enthralled and fearful- who had been victorious? Gaius? Or my dear friend Methos? _

'_I waited- for how many hours I do not know after the light had vanished as if it had never been and the air was still and quiet again. I waited. Then I see a shadow. He stands far enough from the house that I cannot make his face out clearly and my heart stutters at the thought it might be Methos. _

'_Then he tears his hood down and I see pale skin and a mop of untameable dark hair. Gaius was tanned and golden. Methos. Methos won. I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding and throw open the window. I hadn't realised that it had started to rain, but Methos was there. He was alive. _

'_He doesn't come any closer although I call out a welcome to him. He bows his head and raises his sword in a long forgotten salute to a comrade and leaves as silently as he appeared. A ghost then and a ghost now. This shall be my last entry, and although I knew this book had to finish sometime, I wish futilely that it never will. _

'_He told me that there was more to be written and I see now that he was right. I dip my pen in it's ink for one last time. This book has no place among the documents and scrolls at the Watcher's Council but I must write it down. A small amount of truth must survive. _

'_Even if no one reads it or if they do they think it no more than a fanciful tale thought up during a storm much like the one that rages outside now, the history that was hidden from those who were born before it must be challenged, a small piece of truth must and can prevail. _

'_I will sign this truly, I am Delmar Gawain McGonagall, I am a Watcher, I am a Wizard and I am a friend of Methos. The Oldest Immortal. May he live forever and may the truth live with him.' _Methos came back, it's said, when Gawain lay on his deathbed. Methos returned." Minerva looked at him expectantly.

He smiled, "Are you asking if I went back to say a final goodbye? The answer's yes. His family had met me only once in the persona of Dr. William Mallard, when I went back it was ten years after that night. He was sixty-nine. A very good age for back then. I sat next to him, he smiled and called me Methos and then he went." A tear slipped down his cheek. "He was an amazing man, Minnie and you are an amazing woman."

The whole school was curious by McGonagall's relationship with the stranger, Adam. It was the first time ninety percent of the school was early for breakfast on a Saturday. To their disappointment, neither McGonagall or Adam appeared until the last ten minutes of the meal. They spoke quietly to one another and then, Adam pulled the Professor close to him and kissed her soundly on the mouth.

Everyone stared, mouths hanging open and eyebrows up to their hairline, the whole Hall was stunned into silence. "M-M-Minerva!" Dolores Umbridge's voice took on a squeaky high-pitched tone. "This is hardly the correct behaviour to show impressionable minds!"

Adam raised his head and blinked up at her. "Correct behaviour?" He echoed. Then his expression cleared. "Oh, you mean the way I'm kissing her." He pulled McGonagall even closer and kissed her more passionately than before, the heard McGonagall moan, then Adam glanced back up, "is that better?"

"NO! No it is not! It's not appropriate!" Umbridge's voice grew higher and more shrill each word. "She's old enough to be your mother!"

"No, she's not." Adam said simply, then he turned his back on Umbridge. "Darling, you must do something about that…thing in pink. It's hardly good for the children." This comment brought snickers from every table.

"You have a safe trip back to France. You hear me?" McGonagall told him, giving him a hard hug. "I look forward to seeing you in the summer."

"I will, and you stay safe for me, Minnie." He gave her long sweet kiss, "And remember, we will always have Venice."

"And Paris, and Rome and Athens and Cape Town." McGonagall added.

"We had good times, didn't we? I'd have stayed with you…if you asked, I still will."

"You know my reasons why I can't ask. I love you Methos, I always will." McGonagall kissed him back firmly. The man smiled, he buttoned up his coat and then strolled out the castle, leaving shocked faces behind and fuming Umbridge.

"Methos? The Methos?" Snape choked out, looking at McGonagall with shock.

"Yes. We met when I turned twenty."

"Impossible the man doesn't look any older than twenty six." Umbridge told the older woman snootily.

"It is if he is really Methos." Snape told as he went back to his breakfast. "Minerva, I look forward to learning more about him."

Minerva smiled at Snape, "I have the perfect book to get you started."

**Okay, I know the timing doesn't work out exactly but I had fun with Umbridge and Methos. Please review! **


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